Today we had our local wildlife group new year walk around Ely, the forecast looked grim but it had stopped raining by the time we started our walk at 10:30 am, by the time we got down to the river we heard the call of a Grey wagtail as we looked for it a Kingfisher so at the same time we had two birds to look at Grey wagtail on the rail bridge and a Kingfisher on a branch by the bridge.

The sky looked dark but as we walked along the river we had a snipe fly over and land amongst the vegetation on the flooded meadow to our left soon to be hidden from view.

But the best spot of the walk was as the weather turned for the worse and the rain started to come down again we had a small group of four Bullfinch all appeared to be males but there may have been one female as most of the group showed us their white rumps as they flew in front of us, but at least two of the males allowed us to get close and see them in all their glory.

These are quite a handsome looking bird and in the Winter they tend to fly in groups, perhaps as more birds can look for food or maybe as there is little leaf cover at this time of year more eyes are better to look out for the odd Sparrow hawk on the hunt.

It was raining quite heavy when I took these photographs of the Bullfinch so I was quite pleased they have come out well.

So a good start to the New Year with another 3 hour walk and 6 more birds added to the list.